When taking photographs of an outdoor scene, the brightness ratio, or dynamic range, of an area in full sunlight to another area in deep shade can exceed 1000:1 (see FIG. 1). When a reflective print is created of this scene the print is typically limited to a dynamic range of about 100:1. Because of the large mismatch between the dynamic range of the reflective print and the original scene, there needs to be some mapping or transformation of the dynamic range of the scene onto the available dynamic range of the reflective print to create a pleasing reproduction.
A common technique used to map one dynamic range onto another dynamic range is the use of a nonlinear curve, often implemented digitally with a tone map. Tone maps are lookup tables that transform numbers from an input range (1000:1 in an outdoor scene) to a new range (100:1 for a reflective print). Tone maps are typically applied globally; all points in an image that have a certain numerical value are mapped to precisely the same output value. Unfortunately when using a tone map to map a large dynamic range onto a much smaller dynamic range the resulting image often produces a sensation of reduced contrast. This reduction in contrast makes the image appear flat and unappealing (see FIG. 2).
Photographers have addressed this problem by darkroom manipulations called burning and dodging. Dodging is a technique, performed while printing a negative onto photographic paper, in which dark areas of the image are lightened by casting a shadow over the area for some portion of the total exposure time. The shadow reduces the amount of light exposure to the print thereby lightening that part of the image. The shadow is commonly produced by blocking light projected by the enlarger lens with a piece of cardboard on a piece of wire, or even with the photographer's hand. Burning is the opposite process in which additional exposure time is given to the photographic paper by increasing the amount of light exposure to some area of the print. Typically a card with a small hole is held over the print with the light falling through the hole exposing only the area of the image to be darkened.
Dodging and burning work well for large areas of slowly changing brightness, but produce halos in areas that have complex shapes. For example the tree branches in the lower left corner of FIG. 1 would be very difficult to lighten, or dodge, without leaving a halo or bright area around and between the tree branches.
Another technique used to reduce the dynamic range in a scene is the Retinex algorithm developed by John McCann of Polaroid. Retinex is based on the Retina and Cortex theory of human vision developed by Edward Land. The basic Retinex algorithm is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,384,336 “Method and Apparatus for lightness imaging” which is hereby incorporated by reference. The Retinex algorithm reduces the dynamic range of an image by removing much of the slowly varying changes in illumination in the scene. For images that have slowly changing illumination the original Retinex algorithm can make significant improvements in the appearance of the mapped reflective print. For images that have areas with rapidly changing levels of illumination, or even abrupt boundaries between different sources of Illumination, the original Retinex algorithm may only produce subtle improvements. For example, FIG. 3 is a reproduction of the same image as FIG. 1 except that the image in FIG. 3 received processing by the original Retinex algorithm. The bushes in the foreground and the tree in the lower left of the image have been lightened somewhat, but the effect is subtle. Overall the reproduction in FIG. 3 fails to convey the visual impact that was present in the original scene.
What is needed is a method that dramatically lightens the dark foreground in FIG. 1 without significantly changing the brightness of the cloud reflections in the water. This would imply that the large brightness ratio, or large contrast, between the reflected clouds and the tree branches in the lower left of FIG. 1 must be greatly compressed. At the same time, the small, local brightness ratios in the reflected clouds and in the foreground areas must be preserved, without compression. This is important to preserve the sensation of contrast when viewing the image. Therefore there is a need for a system that can compresses large contrast differences between different areas of an image while preserving small contrast differences between different areas of an image.